Photoshop: Reflections in sunglasses

I decided to work on layering an image over another image of a person wearing sunglasses. I thought this skill could be helpful for our poster and website as it connotes that the person in the image is watching something, which we could make a scary image to show that what she sees in life is terrifying.

To begin with, I had to find a generic image of somebody wearing glasses and open it on photoshop. I made sure it was a big and clear image so that it would be easy to see the reflection inside the glasses.





I had to create a new layer to put over the background and name is "left lens" so that all the further instructions would be clear and I would not get confused by the multitude of layers. I had to select the inside of the lens using the markee tool.

I filled the new layer with the colour black, if the my foreground colour chosen in my palette was not black, I had to make sure this was corrected before moving on.






I inserted the image that I wanted to use as the reflection in the person's sunglasses. I chose a picture of a fire as this was easy to use considering it would not matter too much if the image did not join together to create a whole image. I had to rename this image as 'left reflection'.

 I made the left reflection a clipping mask for the left lens which made the image of the fire visible through the background image.








I selected the left lens layer and then added selected filter> distort> spherize and then set it to 75%. This made the image look more realistic as it had a spheric effect, as if a glasses lens.

I repeated all the same steps for the right lens which made the completed image of the reflection in the sunglasses.

Evaluation

• The effect of the image in the glasses is effective as it allows the audience to see the expression of the character and also what they are thinking.
• We could use this effect in the glasses or the eyes of the protagonist and potentially show an image of herself looking back at her- this would depict the narrative and give a surreal edge.
• It looks a bit unprofessional and unrealistic so we would have to develop our skills a bit more.